Cellphone industry opposes California location privacy bill

The California Senate Public Safety Committee is set to hear arguments on the …

On Tuesday, the California Senate Public Safety Committee is hearing arguments on the California Location Privacy Bill (SB 1434). It's a new bill that would provide more consumer protection for law enforcement access to mobile phones. As currently written, it would require a warrant before police gain access to location information, and would also require that mobile phone companies disclose how often and why they are giving up this information as a way to monitor proper use of this law.

In an April 12, 2012 letter addressed (PDF) to State Senator Mark Leno (author of the bill), CTIA says it is opposed to SB 1434 because it may "create confusion for wireless providers and hamper their response to legitimate law enforcement investigations." The group also states that "[the bill will] create unduly burdensome and costly mandates on providers and their employees and are unnecessary as they will not serve wireless consumers."

Earlier this month, the ACLU said it received over 5,500 pages from 200 local law enforcement agencies about their tracking policies. The organization concluded that "while cell phone tracking is routine, few agencies consistently obtain warrants. Importantly, however, some agencies do obtain warrants, showing that law enforcement agencies can protect Americans' privacy while also meeting law enforcement needs." In short, it seems like law enforcement can stay within the law, even when it takes the trouble to get a warrant—how is that confusing?

On the financial side, CTIA’s argument is laughable. Just to give one example—Sprint is a $7 billion company, and it charges law enforcement a $30 monthly flat fee to provide location data on an unlimited basis. And, keep in mind: in 2009, Wired reported that during a 13-month period, Sprint disclosed that data 8 million times. So how exactly is this new bill providing a "costly mandate?"

Mobile phone companies can give up this data millions of times per year, but really can’t be bothered to tell us when or why? That’s ridiculous.

30 Reader Comments

Have the paramilitary units..scratch that, The police not learned that using drag nets for anything is pretty much unsound police work at the end of the day? Yes you might catch who you are after in the end but you burn several innocents in the process. I have a hard time parsing that they pretty much shitcan any or all of the excess data they gather through these means of intel gathering beyond those of the ones they are after.

The police state keeps growing and our rights to privacy are pretty much gone.

Hmm...obviously to keep costs that low Sprint must have some kind of automated system. So...how does it add that much (quite possibly some, probably mostly up-front costs) in additional costs & burden on the cell companies? Just add a "Warrant ID Number" or something like that which must be filled in, and then simply have some reports setup to generate the necessary compliance reports. Sounds fairly straight forward to me.

It's been over a decade since 9/11 and yet we continue to erode our own freedoms. Our large corporations are openly hostile toward American citizens. The police state's unfettered power runs roughshod over the Constitution. Is there anyone who doubts that Osama succeeded beyond his wildest dreams? He launched the first attack but we ourselves are responsible for continuing this relentless dismantling of the American way of life.

It's been over a decade since 9/11 and yet we continue to erode our own freedoms. Our large corporations are openly hostile toward American citizens. The police state's unfettered power runs roughshod over the Constitution. Is there anyone who doubts that Osama succeeded beyond his wildest dreams? He launched the first attack but we ourselves are responsible for continuing this relentless dismantling of the American way of life.

Reporting from California here. Ignore all news involving the California government. Even we few citizens who still pay attention have lost track of the Byzantine power structure, and can no longer figure out who owns whom, who fellates whom, who pitches or catches, or who appointed what friend/relative/mistress/hooker to what plush position. It's become an infinitely complex black box puzzle of corruption and insanity. No amount of external prodding or poking or observation can ever real the true realities within.

CTIA says it is opposed to SB 1434 because it may "create confusion for wireless providers and hamper their response to legitimate law enforcement investigations." The group also states that "[the bill will] create unduly burdensome and costly mandates on providers and their employees and are unnecessary as they will not serve wireless consumers."

1. Legitimate law enforcement investigations should have no problems obtaining a warrant for their searches.2. What costly mandates would there be? It would be LESS costly for cellphone providers to give in to every request at the whim of any police officer than to wait for legit ones with warrants.3. Not serve wireless customers? How's that? Sounds like this bill would serve wireless customers better than NOT having it!

Is there anyone who doubts that Osama succeeded beyond his wildest dreams? He launched the first attack but we ourselves are responsible for continuing this relentless dismantling of the American way of life.

Question: Would SB 1434 only limit investigation to police powers of a criminal investigatory nature? Would is also require that police obtain a warrant when you dial 911 because you've been kidnapped and don't know where you are / can't talk on the phone? Or is there some kind of peacekeeping duty exception for exigent circumstances?

"[the bill will] create unduly burdensome and costly mandates on providers and their employees and are unnecessary as they will not serve wireless consumers."

Yes, so burdensome and costly for the providers and employees to say "We're sorry, we cannot release this information to you without a warrant" and "You have a warrant? Here's the information you've requested." And protecting their information doesn't serve wireless consumers at all because...?

Question: Would SB 1434 only limit investigation to police powers of a criminal investigatory nature? Would is also require that police obtain a warrant when you dial 911 because you've been kidnapped and don't know where you are / can't talk on the phone? Or is there some kind of peacekeeping duty exception for exigent circumstances?

Dialing 911 presents a situation of probable cause through exigent circumstance and would allow the search to go ahead without needing a warrant. "Exigent circumstance" has been recognized for about as long as the Constitution has been in place.

If Sprint is allowed to charge the police for releasing a consumer's data, then they should just charge them MORE - like their actual costs.

Thus, if Sprint is complaining about the cost of giving out the data, it should charge the police MORE to cover their costs, not a mere $30 a month. What a crock. Sprint chargers consumers more than that for data each month.

Does the bill include personal safety exceptions?* lost child* kidnappings* incapacitated adults believed to be in-danger due to an outside report.

I'm good if the police can't get a confirmation from my cell phone company that I'm a client unless they have a valid, extremely specific, warrant. Each request for information should go through a real person too, not be automatic.

The less information provided to law enforcement AND government agencies, the happier I will be. The minimum required by law, should be it.

I have no idea how many non-warrant requests the cell companies are processing now, but it must be a large number, something that would embarrass these companies.

As others have noted, the current system for handing over information is probably highly automated. Most likely the cell providers are worried that this new law would require them to have an actual human being check the warrants before releasing the data. Just adding a "warrant ID" field to the automated request system might not cut it, especially if it's the cell providers that are being held accountable for compliance (as seems to be the case?).

I still don't think that's an "undue burden", especially where customers' fundamental rights are concerned, but it at least explains the basis of their complaint.

And, keep in mind: in 2009, Wired reported that during a 13-month period, Sprint disclosed that data 8 million times. So how exactly is this new bill providing a "costly mandate?"

Requiring a human to make sure each request has a court order is pretty costly.

Same argument as Google stating it's not reasonable for every video uploaded on Youtube to be moderated by a human.

I find it Interesting how two different companies have the same issue, on different sides of the debate.

If every video on Youtube had to be checked before being presented on the site, it would slow down the flow of videos available, make Youtube a pretty frustrating site and probably lose a great deal of traffic.

Whereas, if every data disclosure for Sprint had to be checked before being presented on their service, it would slow down it's use, make each request more costly to the ISP (and DA or police departments) and not make it worthwhile to use as well since much of the information police need in a timely manner.

It's been over a decade since 9/11 and yet we continue to erode our own freedoms. Our large corporations are openly hostile toward American citizens. The police state's unfettered power runs roughshod over the Constitution. Is there anyone who doubts that Osama succeeded beyond his wildest dreams? He launched the first attack but we ourselves are responsible for continuing this relentless dismantling of the American way of life.

Except it was the regime of Bush-the-Lesser that set the ball rolling and put the foundations in place. Obama's regime has simply continued it and expanded upon it. They're both scum, don't single out the one that suits your own bias.

TheFu wrote:

Does the bill include personal safety exceptions?* lost child* kidnappings* incapacitated adults believed to be in-danger due to an outside report.

I'm good if the police can't get a confirmation from my cell phone company that I'm a client unless they have a valid, extremely specific, warrant. Each request for information should go through a real person too, not be automatic.

The less information provided to law enforcement AND government agencies, the happier I will be. The minimum required by law, should be it.

I have no idea how many non-warrant requests the cell companies are processing now, but it must be a large number, something that would embarrass these companies.

1) As the parent of a minor, you have the authority to waive their rights.2) Exigent circumstances would apply, as noted above.3) Exigent circumstances could potentially apply (though really, the first place to check would be at home, and anywhere else would be likely to be discovered incidentally; the cell phone location information would be irrelevant in either scenario).

Requiring a human to make sure each request has a court order is pretty costly.

Same argument as Google stating it's not reasonable for every video uploaded on Youtube to be moderated by a human.

Man, you really didn't think about that parallel before attempting it, did you? Google has MOST of the online video traffic. I shudder to think how many page hits they get per day or how much time is spent on it by the average person. The people that Youtube has access to is WAY fucking more than your shitty little cell provider.

Additionally, if your cell provider gets even 1/1000th the amount of court orders for records per day as videos uploaded into Youtube per day, there's something very wrong with our fucking court system.

Requiring a human to make sure each request has a court order is pretty costly.

Same argument as Google stating it's not reasonable for every video uploaded on Youtube to be moderated by a human.

Man, you really didn't think about that parallel before attempting it, did you? Google has MOST of the online video traffic. I shudder to think how many page hits they get per day or how much time is spent on it by the average person. The people that Youtube has access to is WAY fucking more than your shitty little cell provider.

Additionally, if your cell provider gets even 1/1000th the amount of court orders for records per day as videos uploaded into Youtube per day, there's something very wrong with our fucking court system.

Not to mention that takedowns are really extra-legal. Youtube has no obligation to honor them, they can force the rightsholder to prove infringement in court if they choose.

Personal information, on the other hand, is protected by the constitution and requires a warrant. I question the constitutionality of the laws that alowed these service providers from sjaring, let alone charging and making it into a business model in itself, in the first place.

If every video on Youtube had to be checked before being presented on the site, it would slow down the flow of videos available, make Youtube a pretty frustrating site and probably lose a great deal of traffic.

Whereas, if every data disclosure for Sprint had to be checked before being presented on their service, it would slow down it's use, make each request more costly to the ISP (and DA or police departments) and not make it worthwhile to use as well since much of the information police need in a timely manner.

The metaphor is misleading. The police are asking for a subscriber's information, not access to the physical calls they make - It's akin to YouTube serving up a browsing history, rather than analyzing each video that it comes across. That point being made, the two metaphors further diverge when you consider how many uploads per second YouTube hosts and must keep on its servers in comparison to the ephemeral nature of phone calls.

You're assuming that government agencies would want to get the information of anyone and everyone, when in fact, it would be a small minority of people for whom law enforcement and investigative agencies would request records, and even then they'd have to be documented.

Reporting from California here. Ignore all news involving the California government. Even we few citizens who still pay attention have lost track of the Byzantine power structure, and can no longer figure out who owns whom, who fellates whom, who pitches or catches, or who appointed what friend/relative/mistress/hooker to what plush position. It's become an infinitely complex black box puzzle of corruption and insanity. No amount of external prodding or poking or observation can ever real the true realities within.